RADIOGRAPHY OF A RESISTANCE EMERGING FROM THE ANCESTRAL

Punta Querandí is a pluri-ethnic Indigenous community located in the continental wetlands of Tigre. We were born more than 20 years ago from the discovery of millennia-old archaeological remains. In our worldview, this was not an accidental discovery: it was a call from the ancestors to rise up against the massive advance of gated waterfront developments, which destroy nature and sacred sites containing human burials.

We did not choose this territory: the site called to us. We soon understood that this was not a struggle in a remote place, but at the epicenter of a new urban axis planned for the relocation of Buenos Aires’ upper classes. On the opposite side operated EIDICO, one of the most powerful real estate corporations in the region, whose original plan was to raze Punta Querandí to build a luxury yacht marina. Its president embodied that power: an advisor to the National Government, a leader within Opus Dei, and the grandson of the dictator Lanusse.

Our first achievement, beyond physically halting construction through a permanent encampment begun in 2010, was to make visible a hidden issue: the systematic destruction of ancestral burials. In doing so, Punta Querandí expanded the framework of traditional environmentalism, which denounced the environmental impact of losing thousands of hectares of wetlands. At the same time, this “Rebellion of the Dead” (as a newspaper once called it) challenged the myth of a European Buenos Aires, opening the way to rethink the metropolitan region from its Indigenous ancestry.

Our resistance unfolded across several integrated fronts:

Community stewardship:
Daily presence on the land was sustained by filling it with meaning. The space was transformed into a center of collective reivindication through ceremonies, assemblies, workshops, and educational visits. Over the years, structures were built such as the Cacique Manuá Community Hall, the Autonomous Indigenous-Run Museum, the Opy, the Maloka, the Workshop, the Garden, the Jaguar Monument, among others.

Administrative action:
We never underestimated institutional work. We maintained constant bureaucratic pressure through petitions and formal requests before all levels of the State (municipal, provincial, and national), deliberative councils, Congress, and ombuds offices. Each partial recognition contributed to legitimizing the space.

Communication from the territory:
We did not have the capacity for large-scale street mobilizations typical of other social movements. Our priority was to build the territory and systematically share community life. We sought visibility in mass media—and often achieved it—but we did not depend on external media, as the Punta Querandí community disseminated its own news week by week.

SIMULTANEOUS STRUGGLES

From the beginning, we understood that defending this sacred site was strengthened by two transversal causes:

Environmental justice:
The defense of the continental wetlands of the Luján River, in alliance with environmental groups and neighbors affected by flooding caused by gated developments.

Reburials:
The struggle to recover and rebury human remains excavated by archaeologists from sacred sites across Tigre.

INDIGENOUS BUENOS AIRES

Beyond these founding axes, new issues emerged year after year, consolidating our own agenda and perspective.

We contested the symbols of colonialism in the region: we challenged the tourist circuit of Tigre’s “Paseo Victorica,” denouncing Benjamín Victorica as a genocidal figure of the Gran Chaco; we questioned official tributes in the City of Buenos Aires to its second founder, Juan de Garay, instead honoring Cacique Manuá—the Indigenous leader who executed him; and we marched on every anniversary of the Civic-Military Coup under a historic slogan: “Querandí Nation, the first disappeared of Buenos Aires.”

At the same time, we supported demands for justice in the femicide of a Qom adolescent in Tigre, backed land claims for other Indigenous families and communities in the area, and promoted assemblies and councils to debate linguistic rights in urban contexts.

THE FRUITS OF TWO DECADES OF STRUGGLE

Territorial resistance and continuous community-building yielded several victories, some unprecedented in the region:

2019: Approval by the Tigre City Council of an ordinance protecting continental wetlands in an area near the community territory. Like any regulation, enforcing it remains an ongoing struggle.

2020: Signing of the Community Property Agreement with the Municipality of Tigre, which halted the eviction lawsuit initiated by the company against Punta Querandí.

2020/2021: Creation of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of Tigre and Escobar, through which we achieved another historic milestone: native language courses co-managed with the municipal government (now exceeding one thousand students), and the granting of a sales space at Tigre’s Puerto de Frutos for artisanal production.

2021: The return of the first eight ancestral bodies and their reburial in Punta Querandí and La Bellaca—the first precedent of its kind in Greater Buenos Aires. Shortly afterward, both places were declared sacred sites by the National State.

2023: Registration of Punta Querandí as a pluri-ethnic community in the Provincial Registry of Indigenous Communities (REPROCI).

Present: Consolidation of the territory as an educational space, currently receiving more than 50 institutions per year, including schools, kindergartens, and teacher training programs.

OUR CONVICTION

This is a radiography of the many branches our process has taken, understanding that each struggle is unique and unrepeatable. With full conviction, we affirm that collective effort bore fruit because the resistance—organized and patient—was guided by the spirits of the ancestors.